Both playing and enjoying it a lot it must be said, Blizzard have finally created a moba that I can enjoy which has me very happy indeed.

My overall thoughts on the game haven’t changed from my previous post but over the hundreds of matches I have now played it’s become very clear that while the game is more action orientated than its competitors DotA and LoL it still has plenty of depth to learn.

You probably don’t pick up on that a lot from the quick match option but in the ranked modes like Hero League it becomes important to know the game inside out to give your team the best chance of a win. Picking the right heroes to counter the enemy teams selection is key, as is then choosing the right talents in game to keep them at bay. Like in all games in the genre knowing the maps is also important, from knowing when camps are spawning to when and where certain objectives are spawning it all helps you have a better chance of coming out on top.

If you end up on a losing streak I can see why people start to rage in these types of games, I have never really understood it as a newcomer to the genre but now I have got to the point where I understand where things go wrong I start to see how it can make you cross.

Seeing players do things that you know are wrong is frustrating, I have sworn at my screen probably more times than I would of liked but I have never taken to chat to throw abuse at the person. Maybe I have a higher threshold of control than a lot of others, or maybe I’m just aware that people need to learn from their own mistakes to get better. Either way I can see why such a super competitive game could cause people to lash out, even if they shouldn’t.

With the player base increasing by the day its likely the community will get more toxic, but I figure if you can ignore it and still have fun its not a massive deal. Just mute the idiots.

For now I am still having a lot of fun, even if I seem to be stuck on a horrendous losing streak at the moment! The high 30’s in ranked mode seems to have me destined to lose continuously!

After ages of waiting Blizzard finally decided to let me in on the Alpha (now Closed Beta) of their upcoming MOBA – Heroes of the Storm.

I was going to start with explaining that I have been a casual MOBA player for a while now, then I looked at my League of Legends playtime and noticed the 69 hours played… I guess for a MOBA that’s still pretty light. So…

I am a pretty casual MOBA player, I have always enjoyed the team gameplay of the genre and the nice learning curve it offers in its mechanics, but the time needed to play a single game just never seem to fit into the time I had, which was a big shame. League of Legends introduced a couple of new modes that helped bring down times but they never felt like they did enough and I always felt like I was missing the main game.

Upon starting Heroes of the Storm I assumed I would have a similar issue, however after my first match against actual humans I realised this was certainly not the case. Most games seem to finish in about 30 minutes, usually less if one of the teams is a bit rubbish. This is a major plus for me, at last a game in this genre that I can play around my life.

This was a very one sided fight, but games can be quick.

Another thing that always got to me about other MOBAs was items, the shops full of items often had so many choices that it seem liked it took ages to work out what were the best options, and once you knew them you never used any of the others. Always seemed a little odd to me. There is no such item shop in Heroes of the Storm, at certain hero levels you get to choose a talent from a selection of four (at least once you have played a few games with a hero) and customise your hero that way. Much simpler, maybe too simple? I am still torn on this.